Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

Crusade of course doesn't work for you in Genova...sometimes those brainfarts can be annoying. Anyway, I shall not waste 105 gold on that tile. We will sufficient gold though, remember we only need 260+760 gold. When I open my save, we will have 440+510 gold and making 90 gpt. That's more than sufficient to start upgrading those units on T85.

I will most probably start to work on mercenaries too to pause CS until Hangzhou has reached size 10.

[Modo]

Quick question based on my total ignorance on tile sharing in this game: if you buy let's say the wheat tile between Siena and Ravenna would you be able to chain tile sharing up to that forest south of Siena and chop it for Ravenna?
I'm assuming it doesn't work because only tiles in the second / third ring for both cities can be shared but wasn't able to find a definite confirmation.

[Singaboy]

@Modo,
you can share tiles up to third ring but only if that tile is NOT next to the other city.

T83:

I get a real shock when I open the save. No, there is no war declaration from England or Nubia. England has finished the Mausoleum netting another Great Admiral. The only positive thing about it is that those do not stack any longer. England surely has some powerful navy soon and coastal cities better be prepared for that.
This also negates all my planning with regards to the Mausoleum. I wonder whether England will go after the other two naval wonders. Some intel would be great to have...

My actual turn is very minor as action will start next turn. Hangzhou has grown to size 9 and after changing one tile assignment, it will grow in 7 turns. With the yield from the jungle in 4 turns, it should net CS in 5 turns. (City growth is 14.8 food with a need of 102 food to grow from 9 to 10). Hangzhou has completed its second ring tile grab and now goes for the citrus tile between Roma and Hangzhou.




Even if I had preferred the Mausoleum in the north, it is moot now and I do not buy any tiles at Shanghai. Instead, I plant a very expensive harbor at Shanghai. It will yield +4gpt though. This surely needs a wall chop to help it finish.




I move both settlers toward their destination and water an archer to gather some more intel around Germany. Germany itself has a galley moving up the shore towards Shanghai. I am monitoring the situation closely as I need no disruption for my settler which is arriving at its destination there in 5 turns. The builder from Hangzhou moves into position to start building Petra. I do hope that I can net both Petra and Jebel Barkal. By the way, autocracy has now +2% legacy bonus and it might shave off some turns I will add to the builder charges from Quanzhou. I will need to check how many hammers are added via production next turn.

As I can't finish any warrior anyway, I switch from celestial navigation to IW, which will produce more overflow. stirrups would be done in 1 turn but I would like to build a few more chariots before that. After IW, I will head for machinery, again stopping before completion to be able to build a few more archers. My question is, when is construction being lined up by Rome as I still lack a water mill for its Eureka?

At Kashgar, the tile picker selects the salt in the south and with its strong culture, it will take a mere three turns to expand the borders. With a trade route in two turns, this city will grow faster to size as well. You can spot the settler from Hangzhou reaching its target in 4 turns.

The final picture shows the missionaries on their way south. Both will be able to convert Siena and Ravenna in two turns adding 4gpt

I wonder who many more turns Firenze needs to get converted? Could you check this, Sulla? By the way, once the missionaries have converted those two cities, I will need instruction to follow Rome's troops to convert both Kongo frontline cities. The western missionary will enter the Ocean and will need cover by a galley while the eastern missionary will use the cover of Rome's troops to move south.

In three turns I will be able to recruit another missionary for my newly founded three cities.

[Modo]

Thank you for confirming, Singaboy, that makes sense. Looking at it again there's another forest that Ravenna can use (the one with the truffles) but that would involve both Siena and Ravenna buying a tile towards it and we shouldn't tempt Sullla into picking your pockets even more :D

Regarding the lack of wardecs, is it possible that England / Nubia plays the same game as Rome now? They look threatening so that Kongo / Khmer spend resources into defenses then wait for Rome to attack and tie those units down so that they can sweep in and claim less defended territory.
From what I'm seeing in the long term peaceful development race you guys may come on top so the onus should be on England / Nubia to make a move.

[Athmos]

Don't underestimate the power of the great lighthouse. 1 move is the difference between always being able to chase enemy units or not, and always being able to flee enemy units or never. And it's the only way to get parity with England. If you lose it to them, they get naval domination practically wrapped.

[Sullla]

England building the Mausoleum is definitely unexpected. I would say that's extremely risky with China in the game, except that Chevalier Mal Fet can look on the city screen and see that China has no Harbor districts placed, which made it a lot less dangerous. No Harbor districts means no chance to steal the Mausoleum. Still, the Mausoleum is quite expensive at 400 production and the timing feels a bit questionable to me. Chevalier grabbed the Medieval Great Admiral with this wonder only two turns after he claimed the Classical Great Admiral, and we immediately jumped up to the Renaissance Great Admiral (240 point cost) next. With England getting 8 Admiral points/turn right now, he could have easily claimed the Medieval Great Admiral naturally and then used the Mausoleum to slingshot the Renaissance one. But perhaps they thought that was too risky? I dunno. I've been surprised by the Apadana and Mausoleum builds in this game. Normally no one makes any attempt at those wonders at all, much less in a game where China is present.

Thankfully those Great Admirals will not stack together in the current patch. We would be in very serious trouble if they still did. Chevalier will get to use each Great Admiral ability twice though if he wants (i.e. he can use the ability without losing the Great Person) and that may be what he's after. We absolutely must build the Venetian Arsenal to have enough ships to counter England. I'm sure that their team is thinking about getting that wonder too, but they'll need to clear Education tech first and that will be pricey without a Great Scientist. I'm keeping a wary eye on Woden since he's up to 5 Great Scientist points/turn right now. He's far enough behind Rome that even double Campus district projects completing on the same turn wouldn't catch me right now, but I won't feel completely safe until we have that Great Scientist in our hands. ETA of six turns on the Great Scientist right now.

I'm also really glad to see that Hangzhou only needs about a half dozen turns to reach size 10. That should keep us right on target for the Civil Service boost. OK now for Rome's turn:



Interestingly, the barbarian sword came out after me. The obvious move here was to send the injured archer into Genova and then move west with the healthy archer and shoot at the sword for modest damage. However, I've planned out the movement of these units and the health archer can't reach the front lines with Kongo on Turn 89 unless it upgrades to a crossbow on this turn. So I therefore did the following:



Policy swap time, and that was a big one with 3 of 4 policies changing. I kept Maneuver for forest chop overflow purposes + chariot training and put Professional Army into the other Military slot. I will have this policy in place for exactly 2 turns and then drop it in favor of Conscription again. Losing access to Conscription for even a couple of turns was painful from an economic perspective, as it's saving about 10 gold/turn right now. It had to be done though and Rome can survive without it for the moment. In the Economic slot I added Serfdom for the same 2 turns, needed since this wave of four builders is about to complete over the next two turns. Finally, the Wildcard slot had to be used for Diplomatic League. As soon as I upgrade a warrior into a legion, I will get an envoy with Bandar Brunei, the Commercial city state down by TheArchduke in the southwest. Since I can control the timing of that envoy, I might as well pick up the 2 for 1 deal in the process. This meant giving up Natural Philosophy for 2 turns, but I think it was worth losing 5 beakers/turn for two turns in exchange for an extra envoy.



This is the updated situation after moving. I upgraded the healthy archer to a crossbow, while the injured one is safely sitting inside Genova. Next turn, if the barbarian sword stays in a spot where I can hit it with the crossbow, I'll go ahead and take the shot and just accept the fact that this crossbow will be one turn late in arriving to the front lines. (I practically have a unit on every tile down there anyway.) If the sword moves back to the barb camp, I'll move down towards the Kongo front. The injured archer will get upgraded on Turn 86, delaying as long as possible to save money on unit maintenance.



Here's the actual front lines with Kongo. Note that I have not upgraded any units yet - no, that's not a mistake. I've planned out the movement and everything can get where it needs to be despite delaying another turn. Next turn on Turn 85, I will upgrade the two circled units in yellow, the archer and warrior north of Ravenna. Then on Turn 86, I will upgrade a unit on all 6 tiles within Ravenna's territory by moving along the displayed arrows. I actually missed one arrow for the archer east of the city, which will move NW and upgrade. This will work on Turn 86 because I can get the discounted upgrades at the start of the turn before I swap out of Professional Army, thus getting to use multiple sets of policies in one turn. I always love it when that happens. Then we stage on Turns 87-88, and move into position on Turn 89. Attack starts on Turn 90.

There is a reason to go through this trouble beyond saving a few gold coins. The power numbers on the World Rankings screen are always delayed by a turn, and mid-turn power changes often seem to get delayed by 2 turns. The later that I make these upgrades, the less time there is for Kongo or Khmer to see the attack coming and respond appropriately. I was able to pull a helpful little nugget from the power screen this turn: both Kongo and Khmer had very small drops in their power this turn. That means they are likely both off fighting this Cultural city state, and hopefully this means that their units are out of position. I just need to break through at Mpinda and then the front should open up from there.



Kongo also added a fifth city this turn just to the east of Mpinda. That's great news and this one will hopefully be another prize for the taking. I'm slowly moving galleys over to the eastern sea and am hoping to scout this out further, although the war will start before I can get units into this position.



When Singaboy delivered over the boost for Celestial Navigation, I gained an envoy in Seoul. Now I really wish that I had waited to use the 2 for 1 policy card when I put my initial envoy in Seoul; I would be the suzerain right now and gained 8 beakers/turn. Anyway, this raises the question of what to do with my upcoming envoys. I have one in hand now (from Mercenaries) and I'll get another one from Theology in two turns. I have 4 envoys in Lisbon, 2 in Seoul, and about to have 2 in Bandar Brunei after next turn. So I could put them both in Lisbon for the 6 envoy bonus... or I could put one apiece in Seoul and Bandar Brunei. That's the greedy play for sure, but I don't see anyone capturing either city state in the immediate future, and that would deliver the maximum returns possible: +12 gold/turn from my three Commercial districts and +8 beakers/turn from my four Campus districts. I could actually use the Seoul envoy right now, but I'd rather catch Japper by surprise and claim suzerainty of Seoul on the very turn that I declare war. Or maybe that's stupid and I should just take the (huge) increase in science right now. What do you think Singaboy? I'm very curious about your opinion here. I also do have another natural envoy on its way in about 10-12 turns.



Overview picture for the turn. There are four builders queued up right now for next turn, but I suspect at least one of them will be delayed by a turn with the scaling cost increases. The last one will go up by +12 production cost, after all. That's the reason why I do not have a policy swap set up for next turn, since I anticipate needing two turns to get all the builders done. Ostia will also finish a trader next turn for my third trade route, which will go over to Siena to boost its food output. I'll get a fourth and final trader out of another city, probably Firenze, for the Medieval Faires boost. I'm thinking of sending it to Roma to help provide more food surplus once the capital has its housing situation sorted out. Next up will be losts of forest/jungle chops into more districts.

Celestial Navigation is next because I need it for the Harbor at Venezia. Sadly, I could get the discount on the Harbor right now, but I won't be able to get it once Celestial Navigation finishes when it unlocks an eighth district type. That said, as soon as either the Campus at Milano or the Encampment at Roma finishes, I'll get the discount back, so I'll probably wait an extra turn or two for that before chopping.

The big score changes for this turn were Japper building his fifth city and Chevalier Mal Fet constructing the Mausoleum. Germany's population dropped a point though and that means city #8 is on the way eventually. The Mausoleum also inspired me to take this picture:



All the Great People recruited thus far aside from the initial Great Prophets. Remember that England will get to use those Admiral abilities twice, and the one that creates a Fleet is the obviously more dangerous one. Somewhat surprisingly, I think England is the most dangerous civ on the map right now. Russia/Germany have not maintained their early development edge. England has almost caught them in score, England has more military power, England has more beakers/turn and WAY more culture/turn, and England has two Great Admirals. Russia/Germany are only ahead in faith output and gold income, which are real advantages but not as useful. My biggest longterm concern right now in the game is building the Venetian Arsenal and a fleet large enough to contend with England. I need time to build up all my new coastal cities, but once they get larger, they'll be training a lot of ships.

Good luck Singaboy. I'll be hitting you up for a lot of unit upgrade gold next turn.

[Singaboy]

With regards to Seoul, I would usually try and surprise my opponent, which means I would only add the envoy on the turn when I declare war. With Japper in the turn order ahead of you, it means, that the city state will at least be one turn under your control. Even if he were to invest more envoys into Seoul, he could only do that during the next turn. Not a big difference, but it could make some impact on his reaction.

I am sure your military power is a lot higher after upgrading all those units. Kongo should not pose any threat. The threat we face will be looming 'behind' Kongo and Khmer and that is Nubia on land and England via the sea. It could well be that both will jump on you once the DoF is up. We need to be prepared for a double whammy around turn 105 from both Nubia/England and Russia/Germany.

For me this means getting to reformed church as soon as possible. I will get civil service in 5 turns (T88), then Divine Rights (116 beakers) in around 6-7 turns (I need to build that temple in Quanzhou), so say T95. Of course, I want to chop some walls during monarchy, hence I might be stuck in there for some time while acquiring reformed church (160 beakers). I should be able to get theocracy around the time the DoFs run out and with upgrading chariots to knights and archers to crossbows, should be able to hold off any attack that would come from the southwest.

Our strength is the lead in culture and science, which translates into an edge in better units. It will be essential for us to build some quadriremes to upgrade to frigates. As Rome is going after merchant republic, Rome is the civ to unlock the civics and technologies that lead to caravels and frigates as well as getting a head start for the Venetian Arsenal.

I will start focusing on military and a navy once the three wonders are done (Petra, Jebel Barkal, Oracle). With CS enabled, I will switch from Limes to get +100% navy production. I am hoping to use one galley in Shanghai to be chopped into the harbor. The good thing is, Russia's DoTF is a defensive tactic. Until they get cossacks, both are not any better in terms of military than us. It it Nubia and England we have to monitor. I hope we can play with Crusade to counter them. I am now thinking that it might be better to gift Kinchassa to China in order to fully play the Crusade advantage for Rome's units and navy. It would also enable China to faith buy some units over there as well as get some naval units if required. Having Jungle book is nice but does not provide access to the eastern shorelines.

[Sullla]

For those of you reading along and not watching the turn tracker directly, we've been on hold all day today. Chevalier Mal Fet has had the save for the last 24 hours; hopefully he's OK, I didn't see him post anything yet about his availability. Anyway, responding to Singaboy's last thoughts:

* I was thinking about the Seoul situation, and I think that I favor investing the envoy sooner rather than later. I'm not that interested in the military aspect, I just want to get the +2 beakers per Campus district in play sooner. Rome has 4 Campuses so that means 8 beakers/turn, and even waiting the five turns until Turn 89 would cost us 40 lost beakers. That's a lot at this stage of the game, a full turn's worth of additional research. Earlier, I thought for sure that we would capture Seoul but now I'm not quite as sure. Rome has more Campus districts than anyone else in the game and therefore we would stand to benefit from keeping Seoul around the most. At the very least, Seoul isn't going anywhere until we control the surrounding Kongo cities, so we may as well make use of it for the moment.

* I'm not as sanguine about war with Kongo as you are. I've seen too many aggressive wars in Civ6 go badly to take anything for granted. All that I want to do in the first wave of attack is to capture Mpinda and The Jungle Book. Then we could look to push further ahead when knights start arriving down the pipeline about 10 turns later. I'm setting up to have about 6-7 knights on the field by roughly Turn 100, and I think that will be the time to go for the jugular. Obviously a lot will depend on what's going on in the wider world. I'm still surprised that England hasn't made a move to attack Khmer yet given how weak their neighbor is.

* Yeah, Rome is going to be heavily focused on naval power in the upcoming turns. Venezia will be working on quadriremes in particular for a while since they upgrade eventually to frigates. I envisioned Rome as being the civ that would unlock the naval-focused techs going forward. I'm planning right now to get the two Harbors for Cartography and if anyone will land the "kill a unit with a Musketman" boost for Square Rigging, it's likely to be Rome.

It's actually nice having a day off from the turns today. But I hope we'll be back to normal business soon.

[Singaboy]

Actually Chevalier posted some time back that he will be on an overnight trip on 28/02. I expect him to play his turn soon.

[Singaboy]

Turn 84:

The trader in Shanghai is done. Though the trader is being transferred to Kashgar, I am checking the possibilities. Either I send it to Hangzhou creating a road through the thick jungle in the process or to Rome for 6gpt and 1 science. Hangzhou will finish its campus soon, which will result in an additional food for growth. I assume I am going to send the trader to the capital. When additional bonuses can kick in for international trade, I might consider that.

Next, I start to build Petra in Quanzhou. The builder there has just completed. However, I need to check what a charge from the builder will get me for the wonder in order to optimize production for the temple. After the first charge, the wonder is in fact at 81/400. I will need to check whether this is due to the overflow from the builder going into this charge or the charge by itself resulting in 81 hammers. That would, of course, be ideal. I switch back to the temple and will monitor what is happening next turn. The second builder is climbing the copper hill next turn for some harvesting in 2 turns and then the wonder production.

At the same time, iron working has finished and machinery will be researched until it is at 1 turn short of completion so that I can still build some archers. Civil Service is past 40% and I swap to mercenaries which I need for cheaper upgrades anyway.

An overview of the empire shows production for two granaries on the way. Shanghai has started a wall which should be chopped into the harbor later. Once I am one turn short of completion, I am going to start production of naval units. This of course, should be done with maritime industries.

Hangzhou had to be micro managed to ensure that the builder is completing next turn (it was 1 hammer short) by swapping a 2f1h for a 1f2h tile. Next turn, with the builder done, food will be emphasized to ensure maximum growth in the fastest possible time.

Shangdu has a new tile available to work and I switch from the wheat tile to it to get an additional hammer for the overflow into the walls later on.

Two missionaries are on their way for next turn religious conversions and both settlers are moving to their destinations. It all looks as if there is no interference for both settlers. Let's keep the fingers crossed for that and for all wonders to be completed without anyone else building them.

For Sulla, how much gold do you need for upgrades and the battering ram purchase? I should have 610 gold available next turn but I hope you do not need that much, Remember that I also need to upgrade my own units in around 15 turns :